


Unimaginable

by orphan_account



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: (go read it if you haven't yet), Angst, F/M, Gen, based off roomfullofdaisies' rewrite of It's Quiet Uptown, does this count as a songfic?, post season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5447570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's harder than anyone imagined, losing Doug.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unimaginable

**Author's Note:**

> here's the link to roomfullofdaisies' rewrite of It's Quiet Uptown that inspired this mess. http://roomfullofdaisies.tumblr.com/post/133889932366/its-quiet-uptown-wolf-359-rewrite

It’s harder than anyone imagined, losing Doug.

They haven’t lost him, Minkowski insists, but everyone can see the defeated slump of her shoulders, the dimness in her eyes. She does her work, and does it well, because she is Renée Minkowski and Renée Minkowski doesn’t give up. But she doesn’t joke around with Hera, or snap at Hilbert, or hum under her breath as she works. She spends hours in the observation deck, staring at the star, scanning the horizon for any sign of their lost communications officer. The ship echoes at night with her voice. Sometimes she prays for a miracle. More often, she cries. She doesn’t sing anymore.

 

Hera doesn’t speak. She responds with a blip or a buzz to any commands given to her, prints off her reports manually, and gives short, clipped answers when she does have to speak. Any time she has free she spends running scans of the sky, diagnostics of the escape ship, probability statistics that all come out badly. For any sign that he may still be alive. The ship creaks and groans like it always does. But the sounds come more often, low and drawn out. Hera cries in the only way she can.

 

Lovelace feels the sting of loss, a weak echo of the pain of her own lost crew, but it dredges up old memories. Time has not made them any kinder. Time has made her kinder, perhaps, because she gives everyone the space they need. She can’t even find it in her to hate Selberg anymore. How can she, when nothing at all matters? They’re all going to die out here. Doug drifted away, taking their only means of escape and all the happiness left onboard. She doesn’t make plans to escape.

 

Hilbert wanders. No one confines him to the observation deck or bans him from laboratory. Instead he drifts through halls and through memories. Lambert’s face morphs into Eiffel’s; Rhea’s voice into Hera’s; he feels himself shift from Hilbert to Selberg to Dimitri and back again until he is no one at all. There is only one constant in his mind and she is unreachable.

 

“I know I don’t deserve any of you, but hear me out—that would be enough.”

Minkowski looks at him with tired, red-rimmed eyes and says nothing. Hera chirps quietly. Lovelace floats in the corner. No one speaks.

“If I could save his life—if I could trade his life for mine. He’d be standing here right now, and you would smile, and that would be enough.”

Minkowski blinks and the tears clinging to her cheeks break off and float away.

“I know there’s no replacing what we lost, and you all need time. But I’m not afraid. I know who is crew is. Just let me stay here by your sides—that would be enough.”

Still, no one speaks, but Minkwoski pushes herself up and out of the room.

 

In the hallway, Minkowski leans against the wall, forehead pressed against the cold metal.

“Hera, do you like it alone? It’s quiet alone.”

Hera doesn’t answer, not even a beep. Minkowski sighs. “I used to like the quiet before.”

 

Hilbert closes his eyes, defeated. Of course they won’t forgive him. He isn’t worthy of it. He will be alone, and at least that way he won’t hurt anyone else. It’s better to be alone, he tells himself. Easier. But that doesn’t stop the lump in his throat or the guilt weighing heavily on his chest. The weight stays with him as he makes his way to the observatory. He confines himself back in his old prison. Where he belongs. He doesn’t notice that Lovelace followed him there until she reaches out.

She takes his hand.

Their fingers twine together, fitting together with an aching familiarity. The lump in his throat dissolves and tears well up in his eyes.

They stand in silence, but it is not bad. It's the kind of silence that used to envelop them late at night, squeezed together on a single narrow bed, each lost to their own thoughts. A silence filled with words too heavy to speak.

She breaks it.

“It’s quiet alone.”

 

They walk. They walk the length of the ship again and again and Hilbert talks. He tells her about his sister, the sickness, his determination to save her. He tells her about Cutter and his promises, the deals he made, the literal and metaphorical gun at his head and knife at his back. He tells her how much it hurt to kill the people he cared about. He tells her that he is sorry. He tells her that he loves her. She listens.

Hera listens, too, because she always listens. She has to listen. She doesn’t forgive him yet. She needs time. But it’s a start. She records the conversation and plays it back for Minkowski that night.

 

Everyone on the Hephaestus cries that night, but none of them cry alone.

 

 


End file.
